Death by screenshot
An Ontario court rules in favor of sisters defamed on social media, but the damage is done.
Seeing several variations on this theme on Twitter lately:
Keep feeding that tiger, guys. Surely it will never eat you.
Admittedly, Bobcat is correct to note that some “cancelled” people actually do quite well once they’ve been through the wringer. Jordan Peterson has made a pretty lucrative career for himself out of it.
So has, um, Colin Kaepernick.
But pointing to people who’ve survived cancellation and thrived is survivor bias in action. Many more people - especially those who weren’t well-known before the two-minutes’ hate - have never socially or financially recovered.
One recent Ontario court decision awarded damages to a family who were very publicly smeared as racists based on an out-of-context, misleadingly presented screenshot from their Snapchat feed:
The facts of the case, as laid out in an Ontario Superior Court defamation ruling , show what happens when a snippet on social media is taken from its context and turned into a full-blown mobbing by total strangers. The sisters were castigated as privileged white girls from an Ottawa suburb; in fact, they are both Inuit through their mother’s side, and are registered members of the Native Alliance of Quebec.
The online frenzy was initiated when one of Shania’s followers took a screenshot of the video and shared it to her own followers. That screenshot was then seen by another Ottawa woman, Solit Isak, who is Black and was deeply involved in Black Lives Matter activism on social media.
Isak had never met the Lavallees and had not seen the original video, but believed the screenshot showed a racist act of mocking Floyd’s death. At the time, there were some notorious social media posts called the “George Floyd challenge” where participants would kneel on each other. But while those posts had participants kneeling on the head or neck, as the Minneapolis police officer did to Floyd, the Lavallee photo clearly shows his knee in the middle of Justine’s back as he pins her arms.
Based on the screenshot, Isak waged a social media campaign against the sisters, posting more than a hundred messages slamming them as racists and calling on people to message the sisters’ employers and get them fired. Her followers picked up the cause, as did a handful of media outlets.
“So Shania is behind one of the videos & in school to become a teacher,” said one of Isak’s posts, documented in the court ruling. “Y’all really want her teaching our black babies? Email the @uottawa.”
“Don’t be shy, attack some more,” said another one. “YOU AND YOUR GIRLFRIEND MAKE A VERY UGLY COUPLE. LETS GET HIM TOO GUYS.”
“We are almost there guys!!! TAG [the Ottawa Catholic School Board] in the recent post. DM THEM!! Let them know you refuse to have her in the same room as our black youth,” said another.
Another post shared Shania’s phone number and email address. “Quit playing behind that screen,” Isak wrote.
Both sisters lost their jobs, as did one of their boyfriends. They did get a six-figure judgment against Isak - who unrepentantly plans to appeal the ruling - but the judge acknowledges that they’re unlikely to ever see that money:
In an Oct. 7 ruling, Justice Marc Smith found the sisters were defamed by Isak, and ordered Isak to pay $100,000 in general damages plus legal costs — though he acknowledged the sisters are unlikely to ever see this money given Isak is young and was unemployed at the time of her testimony. He also ordered Isak to remove the damaging posts, and to permanently refrain from publishing or encouraging anyone else to publish defamatory statements about the Lavallees.
Smith concluded Isak’s actions were “vicious, misplaced and are deserving of punishment,” but also “impulsive, naïve, and misguided,” given Isak was motivated by combatting anti-Black racism.
From the start, the Lavallees have always maintained the video had nothing to do with George Floyd. Isak said she was told that one of the Lavallees had jokingly said “police brutality!” in the video, but later acknowledged under examination that she didn’t know if this was actually true, as she hadn’t seen the video. The lawsuit found no evidence this phrase was said, and both sisters testified it wasn’t. (Snapchat videos are permanently deleted from its servers after a short period.)
Smith said Isak never made any effort to understand the facts behind the screenshot before posting about it. “She did not verify that this information was true,” Smith wrote. “She did not care at the time. She blindly embarked on a brutal and unempathetic campaign to destroy the lives of two young women, when the evidence clearly establishes that these two women are kind-hearted members of the community with outstanding character.”
Smith did not order Isak to apologize, however, saying he doubted Isak would ever accept the sisters’ version of events and that an apology would only bring more abuse onto them.
Despite the court finding, the CBSA told the National Post on Wednesday that it would not be revisiting its decision to terminate Justine’s work with them.
“It’s accountability culture, not cancel culture,” we’re constantly told. Okay, but can someone explain to me exactly what the Lavallee sisters are being held accountable for?
If/when the mob comes after Oswalt and Goldthwait, I’m sure they’ll be fine. They’ve made their money. Most cancellation victims don’t have that luxury.
Another glaring reaffirmation that a personal choice years ago to shun "social media" in toto was the correct one. Admittedly, not the right choice for everyone for a number of reasons. But droppin' a few lines such as this in a comment section here and there and a few emails now and then pretty much does the trick for me.
From what was described here, I think it's a shame that no $$$ will likely be forthcoming to compensate for the harm done. Legal, moral and ethical victories sometimes ring a bit hollow when the actual consequences to the offending parties are slim to none. But they're better than noting, I suppose.